PEEFACE. iV 



There is only one point in wliicli the Author has been unable 

 fully to enter into the views of Professor Henslovr, that is, in the 

 names to be given to the FamUies or Natural Orders. In Latin they 

 were mostly taken from the name of some familiar or characteristic 

 genus, to which was added an adjective termination in -acece, -idece, 

 -inem, etc., varying, for euphonic reasons, according to the recog- 

 nized usage of the Latin language ; whilst a few of the largest fami- 

 lies received names derived from some prominent feature. Some 

 modern botanists, thinking to give more fixity to the idea of a na- 

 tural family, have reduced the names of all, without exception, to 

 that of a supposed typical genus, modified by the termination -acece-, 

 a course, however, which in the opinion of others has a disagreeable 

 effect from its resulting monotony, without affording corresponding 

 advantages. All these names in Latin are adjective plurals, which 

 the genius of that language allows to be taken as substantives by the 

 omission of the word planta to which they refer. That cannot be 

 the case in English ; and Professor Lindley in the first instance, and 

 more recently Professor Henslow, have proposed substitutes which 

 should have the effect of English plurals. Dr. Lindley varied his 

 names, giving sometimes compounds of worts, flowers, blooms, etc., 

 but more frequently translating the Latin termination -acea into 

 •ads. Professor Henslow proposes the uniform adoption of the ter- 

 mination -antJis. The Author of this Work agrees entirely with both 

 of these distinguished botanists in the opinion that English single- 

 worded names for all the families would be very desirable did they 

 exist, and that it may be hoped that such may be gradually intro- 

 duced for the more important of them. But he fears that the coin- 

 ing, at once, above a hundred names, with the un-English termina- 

 tions -ads or -anths, and putting them forward as easy English names, 

 would hardly be accepted by the Pubhe. For the present, there- 

 fore, the English two-worded names are retained, for which the 

 reader can readily substitute single-worded ones in the manner ex- 

 plained in the Introduction, p. 34. 



What is usually termed Synonymy, or the concordance with other 

 botanical works, is here generally omitted, as being only of interest 

 to the general scientific botanist. Exceptions are, however, made in 

 favour of references to the plates of Smith and Sowerby's ' Enghsh 

 Botany,' and to the names in Hooker and Arnott's ' British Flora ' 

 (7th edit.), or in Babington's 'Manual of British- Botany' (4th 

 edit.), whenever they differ from those here adopted. 



